The new iPhone’s beta AI has been summarising breakup texts and we can’t figure out if that’s taking the sting or the soul out of interpersonal communication
The dreaded breakup text. One of the worst notifications you can get on a phone, other than that free trial you meant to cancel rolling over. With Apple’s latest AI update, it can summarise texts so you don’t have to manually read them, and that’s equal parts creepy and kinda genius when applied to serious texts.
In a viral tweet this week, spotted by Ars Technica, one unfortunate Twitter user was broken up with on their birthday and Apple Intelligence summarised the breakup text to say:
“No longer in a relationship; wants belongings from the apartment.”
This is all thanks to the latest beta of Apple Intelligence, which owners of the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPhone 16 line can sign up for right now. It is still missing many of the key features Apple Intelligence was advertised as having but they are slowly rolling out to owners of the latest and greatest iPhones.
Apple Intelligence is Apple’s implementation of AI, with promises of on-device uses, such as generative emojis and text summarization being done with its own model, and ChatGPT picking up the slack with its search and writing tools. The full beta rollout is expected by December but the original poster got access to the text summary feature by signing up for the early beta.
Though other Twitter users are understandably creeped out and empathetic to the original poster’s situation, some have found themselves oddly comforted by the idea of an AI summary. One user says “Unironically into this (but I’m a little different emotionally)”. Another says “Low key this is really nice tho… AI cuts through the bs and gets ya the info you need…”. Other users push back on it, with one saying “Have you ever processed a human emotion… ever?”
Ironic, given this is about AI, but the original post is a tad hard to navigate thanks to the verified accounts and bots hogging up all of the top replies. However, if you scroll down, you see heated arguments about whether or not this is a good thing, both interpersonally and culturally.
Where some see a helpful tool to navigate hard emotional spaces, others see a parody of the bad uses of AI. Some believe it could help users process emotions while others believe it could stunt the emotional growth that can come from these periods of turmoil.
As a bit of a generative AI sceptic, I don’t think I would ever use a function like this. Not only do I think there’s nuance to language that a summary would struggle to fully pick up but I think, given the heightened emotional state of a breakup, I would want to read that text for myself.
This is before mentioning the coded language that comes from a long relationship—phrases, unique in-jokes, and terminology. I think the summary would simply make me more anxious before clicking it, prolonging the dread around a situation like this. Breakup texts are never nice so I don’t want to see one from my AI too.
